These are the ones I recommend most often. All links are to downloads from the original authors. None are to the many unauthorized (I assume) duplicates found in the Workshop.

I have grouped the mods under headings that are based on what your goal might be when searching for mods. Also, one warning - mods disable achievements.

Colonial Charter adds a huge amount of well-designed content both for game play and decorative purposes. You can even get addons[colonialcharter.com] for this mod directly from the Colonial Charter website.

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=500578844
The New Medieval Town Mod adds beautiful buildings, unique businesses, a better-looking boarding house (a hostel) and an approach to houses that lets them be three stories high.

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=475534536
There is also a beta of a Medieval Castle mod[worldofbanished.com]. However, the developer, red-ketchup, has a post on World of Banished that says he has abondoned the project :( If this mod continues to be available even though abandoned, I recommend giving it a try. I made the following small castle with it:

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=466453816

These adjust base game content in ways that quite a few people like.

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=426675801

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=475424397
(Download Road 45 here[banishedinfo.com])

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=415812508

These sites have at least a few mods not currently found in the Steam Workshop for Banished:

• The Colonial Charter Forums[colonialcharter.com] - this has some nice add-ons to Colonial Charter and excellent discussions about mods and Banished in general.
  
  
• Banished Info[banishedinfo.com] - a large collection of mods that are much easier to browse and search than Steam since it doesn’t have duplicate mods.
  
  
• World of Banished[worldofbanished.com] - a handful of mods not found elsewhere.

These are developers who have multiple mods that many people seem to like. The following are links to the mods they have uploaded to Steam:

• ShockPuppet
  
• red-ketchup
  
• Owlchemist

If you want the game to be harder, you can try any or all of the following mods:

• Colonial Charter (already linked in a previous section) has starting conditions (e.g., Adam and Eve), maps, weather conditions, production chains, and adventurers that add challenge to the game.
  
• Disease Overhaul[banishedinfo.com] and Nomads Zero Pop[banishedinfo.com] increase the impact of diseases and nomads respectively.
  
• A debug interface can spawn tornados, start diseases, etc.
  
  http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=346180115

These do not affect game play, just the looks of your citizens:

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=348898207
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=349858505
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=350748860

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=466037206
Mods can be compatible even if the game flags them as 'conflicting'. In other words, the red isn't necessarily bad, it just means that the mods touch some of the same areas of the game. For most of the major mods, like Colonial Charter (CC) and the New Medieval Town Mod (NMT), the developers are very quick to answer questions about mod compatibility. For example, here is a quote from @red-ketchup about NMT's compatibility with CC - Excellent Adventure:

red-ketchup님이 먼저 게시:

CC:EA compatible although a little red warning. Flour, Bread and Honey files have been shared between the mods to allow full compatibility. you can use my flour and do their bread, you can take their flour and do my cherry pies :)

dont worry it wont crash your game. if you crash, it is NOT the fault of this mod :)

Here are a couple of screenshots that show the two mods can be used together. The first is NMT buildings with CC quay walls and bridges:

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=447372720
The second shows NMT icon (and a little bit of NMT buildings) along with CC market stalls

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=466039310

Okay, this isn't a mod, but it's something people want to add to the game - a zoom hack[banishedpeople.freeforums.org] (details can also be found on imgur[imgur.com]). It can be a lot of fun. However, if you play any game on VAC servers, make sure you check the Steam community forum discussions about whether cheat engine (the software used to hack Banished's zooming) is allowed or will get you in trouble.

A few points:

• If you zoom in to "street level" (my words), you'll lose shadows. Compare the following two shots:
  http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=454479959
  http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=454480217
  
• You can get some good landscape shots, but you'll see some details that don't look right. Notice the ship doesn't seem to be in the water :)
  http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=454479424
  
• You can see a lot of color and detail and detail you might not notice otherwise, but the perpective doesn't work well with some buildings. Notice the third screenshot in this set:
  http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=451658623
  http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=454493861
  http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=454494213
  
• You'll have to zoom all the way in "below ground" and beyond to get the the "ground level" zoom. Honestly, though, I don't find the game playable once you've zoomed below ground and beyond. I just use it for screenshots and enjoying my cities :)

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=463178907
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=542439458

I'll update the guide based on questions or comments. However, no guarantee when updates will happen... I'll get to them as soon as I have time.

• 2015-11-02: Added a link and note about the beta of the Medieval Castle mod.
  
• 2015-10-26: Added a link to the guide called A Tour of Banished
  
• 2015-08-19: Colonial Charter 1.5 is live. Wow! :)
  
• 2015-07-05: New Medieval Town Mod 1.1a went live :) Excellent new content
  
• 2015-07-04: Added Road 45.
  
• 2015-06-21: Added a section about mod compatibility.
  
• 2015-06-17: Added list of websites with mods and a section for related Guides
  
• 2015-06-14: Added Owlchemist as an author to follow. Corrected some typos.

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